101–110 of 217 posts
Fishy click bait title. The reason electric is so popular is that ICE vehicles get taxed 100% and electrics are not. Remove the incentives and I suspect the market would be different.
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Being Norwegian, that is one of the funniest description I have heard of the country which in reality is the exact opposite.
I suspect that what the poster is getting at is that Norway's population is small and very wealthy, and it is concentrated around Oslo/Bergen/Trondheim so that it's risky to generalise based on what's happening there because, on global scale, it's a bit like a large-ish wealthy city (there are 1 million more people in Hongkong than in Norway). I don't think he meant that it wasn't an actual country. It obviously is.…
Tell that to anyone paying an electric bill, especially if they live in Southern Norway.
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China has EVs that aren't luxury and I'm pretty sure Europe does as well if I am reading your comment correct you are trying to insinuate that EVs are luxury. If not your comment needs some clarity.
> I'm pretty sure Europe does as well Does it? A cursory search seems to put an (used) EV at around 10k$ at best. Poor people definitely do not drive 10k$ cars here. Hell, even my tech-adjacent friends in their twenties rarely own anything more expensive than 3k$-ish.
The real problem is that right now a $10k used EV is almost certainly an old Leaf or Kia Soul EV etc with extremely low range and degraded battery (because they lacked proper thermal mgmt, mainly). So they're not really directly usable by most people. This will eventually change though; in 10 years there'll be boatloads of Model 3s or Ioniqs or Bolts etc on the used market. And yes, they'll be more expensive than a used ICE but they'll also be cheaper to maintain.
I wonder if electric cars were to approach the maximum range that most people would ever want to drive in a day, about double the stated range of the current longer-ranged cars, if that might trigger a rather profound and sudden tipping point. Who cares how quickly they charge if you’re stopping to sleep for the night anyway?
You are looking at it from an American viewpoint. If you are in US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, you might reasonably need to cover huge distances in a day. However there are a _lot_ of people in countries across Europe, Indian sub-continent, SE Asia for whom the current EV range is actually enough.
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I’d love that too. What I want to know is the total impact of me keeping my 2016 ICE or if I should switch to a new EV, new because there are no used EVs really where I am.
In terms of impact, think of it this way - As long as you sell your ICE car to someone else, it's still being driven and maybe it's displacing the purchase of a new ICE car, which is what we really want to prevent. Ideally we would just stop producing new ICE vehicles completely and repair/maintain/sell the existing fleet until it's no longer needed. Hopefully new EVs will also be driven for a very long time, and the…
Currently, the average age of cars on the road is 12.5 years. When someone tries to sell their 10-yr old EV, the buyer will know that a huge battery replacement bill looms, discouraging sales.
"EV batteries typically cost at least $5,000. [...] an EV battery lasts 10 years on average before needing a replacement. In addition to requiring expensive batteries, today’s electric cars run into repair problems after collisions. EVs are still relatively new to the market, so finding replacement body and battery housing parts can be difficult. Additionally, EVs typically have more expensive technology (such as Tesla’s Autopilot) that requires more expertise to repair."[0]
[0]https://www.motorbiscuit.com/do-electric-cars-last-longer-th...
A couple of comments on the article point out that if gas stations start closing due to reduced demand, it will accelerate the effect by making it more cumbersome to own a gas car. Recently, some of the industrial area near my apartment in NYC was rezoned for housing, and nearly all of the local gas stations were torn down (not because of low demand but because a 15 story building would be more profitable). The resul…
Perhaps not applicable to NYC, but isnt it kind of troubling that people who cant afford a luxury vehicle (55-100k) could be put in a position where they have to spend more money (gas) to go fill up out of their way, taxed for being poor, or shut up and take public transit (if it even exists where they live)? Surely no one driving an EV ever got to their position to buy one driving an ICE. Edit: happy this comment in…
Transit is cheaper still but has the problem that it’s nowhere near as subsidized as private vehicle travel but expected to have high fare box recovery, and the transit experience is directly worsened by private vehicle use. Simply subsidizing car ownership less would help there by not masking the true costs and reducing congestion.
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Not in New York... But our Bolt, while not the cheapest car ever, certainly doesn't match your description here. One doesn't have to buy a Tesla to get an EV.
Would you be willing to share what the car has cost in total (maint, elec, insur, ect) over the years? Genuinely curious.
It had a warranty battery repair (to replace a failing module, free of charge to me but a possible concern long-term).
As the guy who turns all the wrenches on the family cars, it’s been incredibly low maintenance. Wiper blades twice, cabin air filter three times, and I had to charge the 12V battery once in the peak of COVID shutdowns when the car sat for 8 weeks or so with a Bluetooth adapter plugged into the OBD2 port. It’s about due for tires all around.
It was $32K before $10K in government cheese, so $22K for a new car was pretty good, but, like any then-new car, it has been a lot more expensive than buying a 2011 Honda CR-V would have been. I paid that premium in order to see if I'd enjoy having an EV. Overall, I have, but only because we have a 2005 Honda CR-V for long-distance travel/road trips, etc. The LEAF is entirely impractical as an only car (though other EVs are better in this regard).
Our electricity is expensive in MA, so energy costs about $0.06 per mile. That compares slightly favorably (about half) to a 35 mpg car buying $3.70/gal gas and doing periodic oil changes.
Around town or to neighboring towns, we choose to drive the LEAF almost 100% of the time. If it had a better CarPlay story, we'd probably choose it 100% of the time. (If I'm not sure where I'm going, the aftermarket Android head unit with CarPlay maps that I installed in the CR-V is easier and safer than the terrible factory nav in the LEAF.)
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I suspect that what the poster is getting at is that Norway's population is small and very wealthy, and it is concentrated around Oslo/Bergen/Trondheim so that it's risky to generalise based on what's happening there because, on global scale, it's a bit like a large-ish wealthy city (there are 1 million more people in Hongkong than in Norway). I don't think he meant that it wasn't an actual country. It obviously is.…
but they get effectively free electricity... Tell that to anyone paying an electric bill, especially if they live in Southern Norway.